Krebs on Security

In-depth security news and investigation

Posts Tagged: CVE-2013-1347

Microsoft has released an stopgap solution to help Internet Explorer 8 users blunt the threat from attacks against a zero-day flaw in the browser that is actively being exploited in the wild.

Microsoft is working on an official fix for the IE8 bug. In the meantime affected users should take advantage of the interim fix that the company released today. It is a one-click fix-it tool that does not require a system restart to take effect.

To do that, visit this link with IE8 and click the fix-it icon under the “Enable” heading. If you need to remove this workaround for any reason, just head back to that page and click the fix-it image beneath the “Disable” heading.

Security experts are warning that a newly discovered vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 is being actively exploited to break into Microsoft Windows systems. Complicating matters further, computer code that can be used to reliably exploit the flaw is now publicly available online.

In an advisory released May 3, Microsoft said it was investigating reports of a vulnerability in IE8, and that it was aware of attacks that attempt to exploit this bug. The company stresses that other versions of IE — including IE6, 7, 9 and 10 are not affected by the vulnerability. However, all versions of IE8 are vulnerable, including copies running on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Meanwhile, a new module that exploits this IE8 bug is now available for the Metasploit Framework, a free penetration testing tool. I would expect this exploit or some version of it will soon be rolled into commercial exploit kits that are sold in the cybercrime underground (assuming this has not already happened).

Update, May 9, 9:00 a.m. ET: Microsoft has released a fix-it tool to blunt attacks on this bug. See this story for more information.

Original post:

The security hole has already been leveraged in at least one high-profile attack. Over the weekend, several security vendors reported that the U.S. Department of Labor Web site had been hacked and seeded with code designed to exploit the flaw and download malicious software.

According to CrowdStrike, the server used to control this latest attack on the Labor Department site was microsoftupdate.ns1.name. The company said analysis of the logs from the attacker’s infrastructure revealed that visitors from 37 different countries browsed the site during the time it was compromised with the malicious code. AlienVault, Invincea and Cisco Systems have published additional details on this attack. AlienVault also said it has since spotted the same exploit used on at least nine other hacked Web sites, including several non-profit groups and a large European company.